Topics: Criticisms of Ayn Rand in the wake of the release of Atlas Shrugged, Part I. The jailing of koran-burning pastor Terry Jones because of his planned demonstration outside a mosque in Michigan. And more.

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One response to “Don’t Let It Go…Unheard #10 available for download”

Yes, the criticisms of Ayn Rand tend to be bizarre and it is obvious those who criticize her in that manner do not read what she writes. Regarding Hickman, the murderer, she comes right out and says that she does not admire his atrocity. What she admired was his stance that “what is good for me is the good.” And this was a case whereby the press and the people against him were much more against him because of that stance (which is a correct philosophical stance) than they were against him for being a murderer. She thought he was twisted, and even speculated that he became twisted due to the bad prevalent philosophy that was against him all the way as he struggled to live a moral life based on that principle. Somewhere, obviously, he went wrong, because being egoistical in that sense will not drive one to being a murderer — but people even today after Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged have elaborated clearly on her philosophical positions still think that if you reject Christianity then you are capable of doing anything, including a brutal murder. And that is what she was against in the Hickman episode of her life. She did not consider him to be a hero, but thought that he had a proper stance regarding the good and stated it openly, and that is what she was drawing from in part for her depictions of the ideal man.

“Night of January 16” has a similar theme, whereby the press and the people hate the industrialist, not because he committed fraud (what he was being accused of) but the idea that to succeed as well as he did must have meant that he committed fraud, because how else can one be so successful? It’s like some people not being surprised that Bernie Maddoff was a big fraud because they believe that the only way to amass wealth is to steal it from other people.